Lady avoids jail for voting useless mother’s ballot in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A choose in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a lady o two years of felony probation, fines and community service for voting her lifeless mother’s ballot in Arizona in the 2020 normal election.

However the choose rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve at the least 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is considered one of only a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to prices, despite widespread belief among many supporters of former President Donald Trump that there was widespread voter fraud that led to his loss in Arizona and different battleground states.

McKee, who was from Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court Decide Margaret LaBianca earlier than the choose handed down her sentence. McKee stated that she was grieving over the lack of her mother and had no intent to impression the outcome of the election.

“Your Honor, I want to apologize,” McKee advised LaBianca. “I don’t wish to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was improper and I’m prepared to simply accept the consequences handed down by the court.”

Each McKee and her mom, Mary Arendt, had been registered Republicans, though she was not asked if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two days before early ballots had been mailed to voters.

Assistant Attorney Normal Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator along with his workplace the place she said there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s poll.

“The one strategy to forestall voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a poll,” McKee advised the investigator. “I imply, voter fraud goes to be prevalent as long as there’s mail-in voting, for certain. I imply, there’s no way to make sure a good election.

“And I don’t imagine that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do imagine there was a lot of voter fraud.”

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for similar violations of voting another person’s poll, and stated no one obtained jail time in those cases. He mentioned agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional problems with fairness.

“Merely said, over an extended time period, in voluminous circumstances, 67 cases, no one on this state for comparable instances, in related context ... no one obtained jail time,” Henze stated. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was important as a result of the type of case has changed. While in years previous, most circumstances concerned people voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in both states, in the 2020 election individuals had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re hearing is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson told the judge. “And primarily what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Well, I’m going to commit voter fraud as a result of it’s an enormous drawback and I’m simply going to slip in underneath the radar. And I’m going to do it because everyone else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” he mentioned. “And I think the perspective you hear within the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the opposite circumstances.”

LaBianca stated that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she instructed the investigator what she needed: going after people who committed voter fraud.

“And if there have been proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be called for, the court docket may order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “But the report right here doesn't show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it could be for somebody just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none evidence, besides your personal fraud, such statements are not unlawful so far as I do know,” the choose continued.